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Saturday, June 30, 2007

A certain Scottie-loving friend of mine, Kathleen Hidingout, just turned 40. I wanted to make her a toy Scottie for her birthday. She has two real live Scotties, Precious, a black one, and Smeagol, a white one.

The pattern I had in my files was really just not satisfactory; it was so flat. Really just a profile. Turns out someone else had the same complaint. I found a simple pattern here. With a few more alterations of my own I made this little guy:

He really looks a lot like Smeagol in this photo.

Barry took a look at him as his ears were going on and said, "Aren't those ears awfully big?" and I replied, "Have you SEEN Smeagol's ears?"

Okay, in case anyone needs me to be specific, here are the changes I made to the pattern I linked to above:

1. Enlarged to 200%.2. Cut main body pieces without ears.3. Cut rounded triangles of faux fur for ears, with felt for lining.4. Cut 4 ovals of felt to add soles of feet.5. Moved the eyes.6. Trimmed the fur around the muzzle to just above the eyes, leaving it long under the chin for the beard and above the eyes for the eyebrows.7. Added a black floss nose.

Friday, June 29, 2007

New Albin Savings Bank bought the old building next door to it, where the old grocery store was until just recently. Their plan was to fix the building, expand into part of it and lease the rest. The building turned out to have a lot more wrong with it than anyone had guessed, which is how these things usually go, and the renovation has been expensive, but the fruits are now visible for all to admire.

I'm calling it a "historic addition" because the building is not new, and the bank was respectful of the old structure as it converted it to use as a modern bank.

This is the lobby, located in the main section of the bank. Through those doors is the "new" part of the bank.

This is the same wall, seen from the new addition. Note that they exposed the wonderful old stone wall. Can you see how thick that wall is? Amazing.

The same hallway, this time viewed from the back of the bank.

And from a few steps further back.

At the very front of the new section, looking out on the street, is a break room/conference room. The double French doors open into that hallway I just showed you.

The break room has a woodstove in one end for coziness.

The sight of the camera sent everyone scurrying for cover. That's Bank President Barry Fruechte, hiding behind one of his customers.

This is a peek into one of the new offices, with the exposed limestone wall. That one belongs to Allen Meiners, who was off doing important things when I was taking photos.

This is an amazing old desk that belonged to the first bank president of NASB. It looks like that spot was created especially for it. I am told that it was a happy accident, however. You would have gotten to see Jake Imhoff in that picture except that he leaped to safety at the last possible second.

My last photo is of one of the windows at the back with the late morning sun streaming through it.

The bank is only using maybe a quarter of the space in the building and is looking for good tenants for the rest.

Oh, and I used real names for this post - these are all bank officers with their names all over legal paperwork that anybody can access so I don't think they will mind.